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Robert B. Crotty in May 1955 a Journalist Edmund Wilson Religious Traditions 41 QUMRAN STUDIES - CHALLENGE TO CONSENSUS Robert B. Crotty In May 1955 a journalist Edmund Wilson published an article on the Dead Sea Scrolls in The New Yorker.1 It caused consternation particularly among readers with a Christian background since it implied that Christian scholars feared the consequences of dissemination of the text of the Scrolls2 and any popular knowledge of the archaeological discoveries made at the area known as Qumran. To recapitulate very briefly, in the spring of 1947 a young Bedouin called Muhammad ed-Dhib, while looking for a lost goat, chanced on a cave in the Dead Sea area. The cave, upon Investigation, contained pottery jars, some intact and some already shattered. Some of the jars contained manuscripts written on leather skin and other material. Eventually some of the material taken from this cave was sold in Jerusalem. These scrolls were recognised as "the greatest manuscript find of modern times" by the doyen of Middle Eastern scholars, William F. Albright. The area in which the manuscripts had been found was systematically combed by both Bedouin and archaeologists in the subsequent months and years. From eleven manuscript-bearing caves a total of 625 complete and fragmentary texts were recovered. In one of these, cave 4 there were fifteen thousand fragments which made up something in the vicinity of four hundred texts. The publication of this trove of texts has been slow. For example, of those four hundred texts from cave 4 only seventy-five have been definitively published and another fifty partially published. These scrolls represented all the books of the Hebrew Bible apart from the book of Esther, some in multiple variants. But there 42 were also non-biblical documents. The most important of these latter were considered to be the Manual of Discipline {abbreviated as lQS) the Rule of the Congregation (lQSa) , the Hodayot, hymns of thanksgiving (lQH), the Damascus Rule (CD), the War Scroll (lQM), the Copper Scroll (3Ql5) and various commentaries on the Hebrew prophets and the book of Psalms called pesharim. Naturally the findings around the Dead Sea aroused questions: who had placed the scrolls in the caves, when and why? Not far from the general cave area there was a ruined hab.itation in a region known geographically as Qumran. Only passing attention had been paid to it previously, since Palestinian archaeology had shown little interest in anything that post-dated the Herodian period and the settlement had been considered a Roman fortress or even a Crusader construction. In 1950 Roland de Vaux, on behalf of the £cole Biblique at Archeologique Fran<;aise be;-an excavating and his findings have largely remained unchallenged. As they stand the ruins ha ve been identified as a monastic establishment belonging to the Essenes, a Jewish sectarian group. It is claimed that they were responsible for copying the manuscripts and eventually for storing them in the adjacent caves. The settlement had begun as a military outpost in the eighth century, but destroyed and abandoned in the next century. A fresh occupation would have taken place around 150 BCE with restoration of building and the addition of new rooms. During the reign of John Hyrcarnus 1 (134-104 BCE ) there was a substantial increase in building activity with the addition of a two-storied tower, presumably for defence but perhaps only for vigilance, an assembly hall, a refectory, workshops and intricate water installations. This phase came to a dramatic close about 31 BCE when an earthquake split the monastery, caused a fire, and brought about abandonment of the site.4 The settlement was abandoned un til the beginning of the Christian era. During the first decade of that era a second major archaeological phase can be validated continuing to the final destruction of the habita tion in 68 CE. For some little time thereafter the ruins would have been inhabited by Roman troops, presumably the Tenth Legion. These archaeological findings have been seriously challenged only on non-substantive features and they therefot·e define those parameters within which discussion on the Qumran phenomenon can be undertaken. Thus, the copying of the scrolls, their seclusion and all events related in them must have taken place before 68 CE. References to persons and events connected with the foundation Religious Traditions 43 of the sect, found in the non-biblical texts, given a period of occupation from 150 BCE, would seem to be situated in the second century BCE. Departure from such a general framework of reference would seem to require substantiation. What now follows is the consensus view on Qumran, the events leading to its foundati on and the identification of its inhabitants. This consensus view has emerged only after considerable academic vacillation, made more confusing by the incomplete dossier of published manuscripts. The origins of Qumran, according to the consensus view, are to be sought in the middle of the second century BCE when a group of Essenes went out into the desert and began rebuilding a ruined Jewish fortress. Their founder and leadec was a figure mentioned prominently in the sectarian documents, the Teacher of Righteousness. The sect was confronted by a Wicked Priest, mentioned particularly in the pesher on Habakkuk, a renegade who sought to kill the Teacher. The consensus view identifies the Wicked Priest with one or other character of the Hasmonean period, usually Jona_!han (160-143 BCE) but sometimes Simon (142-134) although the latter identification raises problems. The commentaries relate that the Wicked Priest died a horrible death at the hands of the Gentiles.5 Indeed, Jonathan was executed by the Seleucid general Trypho, after an imprisonment, while Simon was murdered by his brother-in-law Ptolemy. Another important figure in this founding period was the 'Man of the Lie', usually distinguished from the Wicked Priest. He caused a schism in the sect's following. The troubles of the period are demonstrated by the text of a commentary on Nahum which describes Jerusalem, symbolically depicted as 'Nineveh', inhabited by 'lions', each of which is then equated with a specific gentile. Of hig.hest significance was the 'Lion of Wrath', identified by the consensus view with Alexander Jannaeus who crucified many Pharisees in 88 BCE. The pesher on Nahum maintains that the enemies of the 'Lion of Wrath', who are called the 'seekers after smooth things', were hanged on a tree. This seems to fit the Alexander Jannaeus incident, although he was a Jewish king and not a gentile. The sect was dissipated following the earthquake in 31 BCE. The consensus view maintains that it regrouped in the early Christian era with substantially the same category of followers. It continued at Qumran until the settlement was destroyed by the Romans in 68 CE at which time the scrolls had been deposited in the caves. Within the consensus view there is obviously room for variants. We could take two principal examples of variant. H. Stegemann6 44 attri but es the ortgtns of the sect to the outrage felt by Hasidim at the in creasing hellenization of their com patriots in Jerusalem. In several centres they formed groups willing to resist that process but, due to their involvement against Antiochus Epiphanes, they were eventually fo rced out into the desert areas. The Teacher of Righteousness joined such a group. He was a High Priest7 of Jerusalem, ousted by Jonathan in 15 2 BCE, already identified as the Wicked Priest. The teacher consequently took refuge in one of these already existing com munities of Hasidim. The arrival of the 1'eacher of Righteousness led to a schism. 'The Man of the Lie', also known as the 'Spouter of Lies' and the 'Man of Mockery' abandoned the group with a substantial following of sectarians. Stegemann explains the split as being due to a clash of authority with the Teacher, who still claim ed the eminence of the authentic High Priesthood. 'The Man of the Lie' formed a separate group who were to become the Pharisees. The Teacher, now established as the leader at Qumran, developed his own teaching as the new law for the true Israel. The second example of a variant is that of Jerome Murphy-0 'C onnor.8 He maintained that the origins of the sect are to be discovered in group$ of Jews who returned from Babylon, where their forebears had been exiled in the sixth century, to Palestine in the second century BCE. They had been encouraged to return upon hearing of the successes of Judas Maccabaeus and the restoration of a theocracy in Jerusalem. Murphy-O'Connor sees a substantial vindication of this position in the text: The Well is the Law, and those who dug it were the converts of Israel who went out of the land of Judah and sojourn in the land of Damascus (CD 6, 4-5). 'Damascus', he claims, is a symbolic nam e for Babylon. The returnees were disenchanted with Jerusalem and its priesthood and retired to the desert. It was amongst these recluses that the Teacher, a High Priest prior to J onathan who was the Wicked Priest, took refuge. The 'Man of the Lie' split from the community because of the Teacher's proposal to take the group out into the desert region of Qumran so as to fulfil the requi rement of Isaiah 40:3: A Voice cries: 'Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yahweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert'. The schismatic group led away by the Man of the Lie were those Essenes later mentioned in the writings of Philo and Josephus. Religious Traditions 45 Despite the variations there is a consistency in the framework of the consensus view, even though there is diversity in the details.
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